I had some random musings about baseball card budgets and thought I'd share them here (because if I can't share random baseball card musings on Net54, where CAN I share them?)
I find myself from time to time getting frustrated that my budget never seems to allow me to get all the cards I want...not even close.
But as I thought it over, it's the budget that actually MAKES this hobby fun.
I know that everyone on this board has different amounts of money available for the hobby...but I'm guessing that almost no one has UNLIMITED funds to spend on cards.
Staying within budget allows me to search for cards online and at shows and my LCS to find that perfect fit of cards I'm looking for in the right price range. It let's me decide if I want to acquire lots of low grade commons, or save up for a special piece. It allows me the opportunity to browse listings and look for deals, and watch the seconds of an online auction tick down as I sit on pins and needles wondering if I'm going to "win" that card.
On the flip-side...if I had INFINITY amounts of money, then none of that stuff would matter. I could basically go on ebay and click "buy it now" on every card I ever remotely wanted, put outlandish top bids on every auction, and basically fill basement with old card board. And then what?
So it's actually the budget that gives me the satisfaction of searching, saving, winning, etc. And in that way, people with all budgets (whether you can only spend $5.00 on cards per month or $5000) can enjoy card collecting the same way. Yeah, the guy with a $5000 budget can go after different cards than the guy with $5.00, but the experience and enjoyment can be similar.
(And it makes it even better when both the $5.00 a month guy and the $5000 a month guy posts their cards on here so we can all enjoy them).
And because every post is better with a card picture, here is a picture of my Germany Schaffer card. My first t206, that I really enjoyed handling when I received it. t206's are on much thinner stock than I realized, and holding a 100+ year old baseball card is really cool...and I didn't need a very big budget to acquire it.
germany.JPG